What in the world happened to my Fluid XP+ Extreme?!

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Dew itt right

2[H]4U
Joined
Oct 28, 2005
Messages
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My MAGICAL DISAPPEARING FLUID has me very puzzled...

I replaced my green PC Ice coolant with Fluid XP+ Extreme Midnight Blue. I failed to get all the fluid out of my radiator or pump so the fluid turned aqua-ish right away. I let it go for about a week and after a week the fluid was completely clear!!

I though it was due to the mixture of the two maybe, so I COMPLETELY emptied the setup and refilled it with a new bottle of the expensive crap and it was a gorgeous dark blue! Looked great in the UV lights! However, after only 4 days now, it's almost clear again!!! It still glows a light blue in the UV's, but with the lights off it's barely barely blue. I'm sure by the end of the weekend it'll be just like water again.

I read Fluid XP's FAQs and they warned about using cheap components with crappy metal. But you can see from my sig that all my components are decent parts/manufacturers. I emailed Fluid XP yesterday and am still waiting for a reply.

Anybody else have this problem or heard of it before? The dye has to have gone somewhere! Is it caked all over the inside of my blocks & rads? I'll try to post some pics sometime this weekend if anybody's interested. I'd drain the system and take the pieces aprt to see where the blue is all going but (a) I have no time to do all this right now and (b) because I just blew almost $75 on two bottles of this crap and don't have anymore coolant to refill the system with.

Any help would be greatly appriciated...
 
I got mine @ frozencpu... It's supposed to have a 5 year shelf life.

I also have got 2 big bottles of Midnight blue and after a few days mine is DAMN NEAR CLEAR ASWELL!!!! Let me know what the email you please... It looks great under UV, but in a few days you will think your UV is broken lol...



 
Yeah, I got mine at FrozenCPU.com too, both bottles.

Here are some pics. The bottle on the left is fluid that obviously hasn't been used yet. The bottle on the right has fluid that was drain from my setup the first time. Believe it or not, that clear fluid looked EXACTLY like the bottle on the left before it was in the system!!

The second pic is my system now - it was taken this morning, only 4.5 days since I drained & refilled the system with the second bottle I purchased. (UV lights off)


 
damn, I am going to write Frozen CPU today as well about this


 
thats really odd.
i would definitely get some coolant so you can clean your system out.
that color had to go somewhere...
 
You can get all sorts of strange reactions when you use dissimiliar metals in a liquid cooling system. I'm thinking some type of interaction, lets say copper \ aluminum, or copper \ aluminum \ brass... whatever the materials are caused some type of chemical reaction.
 
dekard said:
You can get all sorts of strange reactions when you use dissimiliar metals in a liquid cooling system. I'm thinking some type of interaction, lets say copper \ aluminum, or copper \ aluminum \ brass... whatever the materials are caused some type of chemical reaction.
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True, but if you check my sig, I'm almost positive all the components are said to be composed of solid copper only (with the obvious exception of acrylic and plastic).
 
Dew itt right said:
True, but if you check my sig, I'm almost positive all the components are said to be composed of solid copper only (with the obvious exception of acrylic and plastic).
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Its that 'almost positive' that worries me. :)
 
Try taking some of the good fluid xp and putting it in a cup, then leave a UF CCFL by it for a few days. I suspect that the dye in it is getting broken down by the UV, even though it's designed to be under UV light, so it shouldn't. Stupid Fluid XP >.>
 
Dew itt right said:
True, but if you check my sig, I'm almost positive all the components are said to be composed of solid copper only (with the obvious exception of acrylic and plastic).
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the top and bottom of your tank-o-matic kind of look like AL to me.

dissimilar metals or not, i'd be checking the unfinished copper and brass surfaces in your rad and block for heavy deposites.

this is, once again, why i never reccomend these non-conductive additives: they always seem to be doing something weird every time i turn around. be it disappearing colour or turning to jelly inside of someone's block, it never ends well. with distilled water and additive, at least you know damn well what the risks are, and how to prevent them.
 
DFI Daishi said:
the top and bottom of your tank-o-matic kind of look like AL to me.

dissimilar metals or not, i'd be checking the unfinished copper and brass surfaces in your rad and block for heavy deposites.

this is, once again, why i never reccomend these non-conductive additives: they always seem to be doing something weird every time i turn around. be it disappearing colour or turning to jelly inside of someone's block, it never ends well. with distilled water and additive, at least you know damn well what the risks are, and how to prevent them.
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Yeah, Tank-o-matics are 100% Aluminum.
 
I wrote an email to Frozen CPU, and within 5 mins. Mark the owner responded back. That's why I love Frozencpu.com

Anyway, Mark has instructed Aaron who works for FluidXP to take care of us Dew

Email from Mark:
Aaron

Please take care of this customer and anyone else in the Hard Forum Thread that is having issues.

In this email, as you can see above. I have instructed Aaron ( manuf of FluidXP) to work directly with you on this.

Mark
Click to expand...


 
fenderltd said:
I wrote an email to Frozen CPU, and within 5 mins. Mark the owner responded back. That's why I love Frozencpu.com

Anyway, Mark has instructed Aaron who works for FluidXP to take care of us Dew

Email from Mark:



Click to expand...
Nice Response.. I haven't worked with them before, but after that kind of reply I want to.
 
wow - that's a pretty interesting problem you're having. I'm also going to have to assume that the mixing of metals with this fluid is causing this reaction. But i haven't even had much experience with FluidXP - so i can't say for sure! Keep us posted!
 
Awesome work fender!! ;) I've placed 9 orders in the past 6 months at FrozenCPU.com totaling almost $500 and every order has been perfect and arrived incredibly fast! They're awesome with replying to emails and phone calls too. They may be a buck or two more expensive than some other sites, but the quality of service is well worth it!!

Okay, no I apparently don't know the materials making up my entire WC setup at a moment's notice. :rolleyes: Yes the res is Al and it's the only Al part. Do you have Cu/Al mixed in your setup, Fender?

The reason for the non-conductive coolant is that I'm an impatient idiot who works on his PC quickly and aparently not very carefully. It's my only rig so downtime really sucks (although It's probably spent more time down due to damage than work in progress! :confused: ). I had a leak once with Tt's bigwater coolant that fried my 1-day old X800PRO! A couple month's later, after working on the WC setup, one lonely drop of this Fluid XP Extreme made it's way right down INTO the ATX mobo connector. When I tried to start it up, instead of frying my board, it simply turned on for a second and turned off. Took my a while to find it but once I got it dried up my mobo and system were good as new. As ignorant & impatient as I can be, I'd never use any conductive coolant in my system. I'm simply not careful enough. Don't bash me over it either please, at least I'm honest about it. Not proud, but still honest.
 
I have a bottle of red FluidXP, but the $20 bottle. I'm going to introduce it to my new setup in a few days, so I'll post back on my results as well.
 
I use Fluid XP because my box runs damn near 24/7. If a problem would happen and leak, I didn't want my cat finding the leak and licking up the antifreeze. Fluid xp cools just the same from the review I read here
and if I get hungry, I think its even edible :p
FrozenCPU rocks. If only they sold all my other hardware :(


 
Dew itt right said:
The reason for the non-conductive coolant is that I'm an impatient idiot who works on his PC quickly and aparently not very carefully. It's my only rig so downtime really sucks (although It's probably spent more time down due to damage than work in progress! :confused: ).
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For a guy who's nickname is 'dew it right'... lol...


One thing you'll learn in life is that you either have time to do it right the first time, or you have time to do it again. One way or the other there are very few shortcuts. And the best results take the best effort.

Slow down, learn to pace yourself. Learn when to walk away and come back later. There is no subsitute.
 
I understand this, but there are more issues than just patience. Sometimes it's either "do it now and do it quick" or "do it in 3 weeks and do it slowly" and three weeks is more than I care to wait. Understand me here, I don't screw things up all the time! 19 times out of 20 everything works out great. I've only ever really had those two blunders with the WC setup and one was very minor. Trust me, I'm not completely incompetent - time is just something I rarely have enough of to do things the way I wish I could. That is what it really comes down to.
 
Dew itt right said:
I understand this, but there are more issues than just patience. Sometimes it's either "do it now and do it quick" or "do it in 3 weeks and do it slowly" and three weeks is more than I care to wait. Understand me here, I don't screw things up all the time! 19 times out of 20 everything works out great. I've only ever really had those two blunders with the WC setup and one was very minor. Trust me, I'm not completely incompetent - time is just something I rarely have enough of to do things the way I wish I could. That is what it really comes down to.
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When that happens to me I find I have to drop something.
 
dekard said:
When that happens to me I find I have to drop something.
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Well I happen to love my wife & job more than my PC so divorce and unemployment are out of the question! :D
 
I have had Fluid Xp in use for around three months now, I haven't notice a change. I've drained it twice looks the same.
 
catalystsupreme said:
I have had Fluid Xp in use for around three months now, I haven't notice a change. I've drained it twice looks the same.
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Extreme or regular? I'm not sure if it makes a difference, just curious.

fenderltd: My rig runs 24/7 too - another reason non-conductive is a must! But you still never told me if you have Al & Cu in your setup.
 
what color do you have catalys?

What ever the Swiftech h20-120 prem. is what I got Dew

 
Update!!

Well, this weekend I did some changes with my WC setup. I ditched my BIX for a swiffy mcr220 and moved my existing mcr120 to the outside of the case. Anyway, I obviously had to drain the system to do this.

Finally getting upclose with my setup, I could see the tubing had a very very slight blue film at random locations, not a real big deal though. The top of my chipset block is acrylic and I could see no real buildup in there.

When I drained the rads, I dissconnected them with some coolant still inside. I then covered the holes and shook the fluid around inside the rad to maybe loosen anything inside. the mcr120 drained outside fine.

The BIX on the otherhand had this inside...



Now that the system is going again and the BIX is gone, I'm going to try to use a little bit of the blue stuff again and see if maybe the color keeps this time. I'm hoping the BIX was the only one with buildup.

BTW, anyone know how to get the rest of the crap out of my radiator? :confused:
 
Thanks fender, I've rinsed with D. water about 5 times and with vinegar 2 time (after soaking for 4 hours and 7 hours) and there's still a considerable amount of blue flakes coming out. This is going to take a while! :( Thanks for the link though.

Day 5 after contacting Fluid XP+ and still no response. I emailed FrozenCPU on saturday to thank them for their help and to ask if they could keep bugging Fluid XP too until we get a response.
 
FrozenCPU replied to my email first thing this morning (of course), here's what I got...

FrozenCPU said:
Brian,

I am going to copy in FluidXP on this email right now. If I do not hear a response from him today over email. I will be calling him on the phone to resolve this issue.

I will leave a copy of this email in my inbox until I hear a response.

Mark
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Isn't the whole point of a non-conductive fluid it's insulative qualities? Not being able to conduct electricity should reduce the battery effect, that one experiences while mixing metals.


**Scratch that ;) **
 
Man am i glad you posted this I was about to order a bunch of this stuff . I like the Idea of non conductive. On a side note I have a few bottles of Pc ice on the shelf its been sitting a while and its almost clear now . After inspecting it the bottom of the bottles are full of the blue die . It seems it won't stay suspended.

Also On a side note I just refilled a system that uses the koolance aluminum rads and copper blocks and no corrision was present and it still had its wonderful midnight blue color.
After reading this I also inspected the the koolance liquids I have on the shelf and its color is perfect and no die in the bottom of the glass jars I keep this fluid in . I hate those pouches it use to come in.
 
PC Ice has had dye separation issues but there are claims that they've reworked the formula and this isn't an issue anymore. Contact them, or the place you bought it, and you *should* be able to get it replaced.
 
im using pc ice and havent had any problems with dye seperation.
the bottle on my shelf doesnt show any sediment at the bottom either.
 
Stuey83 said:
PC Ice has had dye separation issues but there are claims that they've reworked the formula and this isn't an issue anymore. Contact them, or the place you bought it, and you *should* be able to get it replaced.
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Thanks I will do that
 
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